Fukushima Radioactive Water May Breach Plant’s Storage Trenches in 5 Days

By Tsuyoshi Inajima -
Jun 2, 2011

Radioactive water accumulating in
Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant may start overflowing from
service trenches in five days, potentially increasing the
contamination from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been manually pumping water
into overheating reactors after cooling systems broke down and
much of that has overflowed into basements and trenches. The
water is rising at a rate that means it will overflow as early
as June 6, Bloomberg calculations from the company’s data show.

“There is still a risk of radioactive water leaking into
the sea,” Hikaru Kuroda, an official at the utility known as
Tepco, said in Tokyo today. “We may have between five and seven
days before the water levels reach the top of the trenches.”

Almost 60 percent of Japanese adults worry they’ve been
contaminated since Fukushima started emitting radiation almost
three months ago, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The
poll shows at least 80 percent of the population is dissatisfied
with the response either from Tepco or the government of Prime
Minister Naoto Kan, who survived a no-confidence vote today.

“Solving the problem of contaminated water is critical,”
said Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research
Institute at Kinki University in western Japan.

Tepco shares rose 2 percent to 305 yen in Tokyo. The stock
has fallen 86 percent since March 10, the day before an
earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and cooling at the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, erasing 3 trillion yen ($37 billion)
of the company’s market value.

Leaking Water

Tepco has pumped millions of liters of cooling water into
the three reactors that melted down. By May 18, almost 100,000
tons of radioactive water had leaked into the basements of
reactor and turbine buildings, connecting tunnels and service
trenches at the plant, according to Tepco’s estimates.

Water levels are between 27.7 centimeters (11 inches) below
the top of a shaft leading to a trench connected to the No. 2
building and 23.9 centimeters below the ground at the No. 3 unit
today, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tepco, said.

The levels were 64.1 centimeters for the No. 2 building and
45.6 for No. 3 on May 27, showing a rate of increase that will
reach the lip of the trenches as early as June 6.

To prevent leakage into the ocean, Tepco poured concrete
and gravel to seal trenches closest to the sea near the No. 2, 3
and 4 reactors, Tepco spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said by phone.

Water Storage

“We are still considering the measures to be taken if
contaminated water leaks,” Iwamoto said today.

The company may transfer more water than planned to a waste
story facility to avoid overflows, Matsumoto said.

“There are likely to be underground leakage pathways that
will be very hard to plug, and therefore the only way to stop
the ongoing marine contamination is to remove the water from
basements and other structures as quickly as possible,”
environmental group Greenpeace International said in a
statement.

The rate of increase in water level quickened because of
three days of rain from typhoon Songda that weakened as it swept
past Japan earlier this week. Namie, a town near the Fukushima
Dai-Ichi station, had 112 millimeters of rain on May 30,
according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Japan is regularly buffeted by typhoons and tropical storms
between May and October, adding another risk to containing the
radiated water at the Fukushima station. Hydrogen explosions at
the plant blew the roofs off three reactor buildings, exposing
pools containing spent fuel rods.

Typhoon Measures

Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman for the utility, said the
company plans to complete installing covers for the buildings by
October.

In early April, Tepco spent days trying to stop a leak of
highly radioactive water into the sea from a pit near the No. 2
reactor. It turned to using concrete, sawdust, newsprint and
absorbent polymer used in diapers to block the leak.

The efforts failed and drew comparisons with BP Plc’s
attempts to plug an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico last year
with golf balls and strips of rubber tires. The Tepco leak was
eventually sealed with sodium-silicate, known as liquid glass.

Tepco on April 5 said it had dumped almost 10 million
liters (2.6 million gallons) of radioactive water into the sea
from the Fukushima plant, which led to radioactive cesium being
found in fish at levels exceeding health guidelines.

The company said at the time the decision was the lesser of
two evils as it needed to find space for storing water that was
highly radioactive and more toxic that what was released into
the sea.